Read Ebook: Ruth of the U. S. A. by Balmer Edwin Betts Harold Harrington Illustrator

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Ebook has 1699 lines and 97663 words, and 34 pages

It was plain that the Germans who obtained the passport knew of some German girl upon whom they could depend; but they could not--or did not dare to attempt to--communicate directly with her. Ruth knew vaguely that hundreds of Germans, suspected of hostile activities, silently had disappeared. She knew that the American secret service constantly was causing the arrest of others and keeping many more under observation. It was certain, therefore, that communication between enemy agents in Chicago must have been becoming difficult and dangerous; moreover, Ruth had read that it was a principle of the German spy organization to keep its agents ignorant of the activities of others in the same organization; so it seemed quite probable that the people who had possession of Cynthia Gail's passport knew that there was a German girl in the city who might play Cynthia's part but that they could not locate her. Yet they were obliged to find her, and to do it quickly, so that she could take up the r?le of Cynthia Gail before inquiries would be made.

What better way of finding a girl in Chicago than posting yourself as a beggar on State Street between the great stores? It was indeed almost certain that if the girl they sought was anywhere in the city, sooner or later she would pass that spot. Obviously the two Germans who had mixed with the crowd on State Street also had been searching for their German confederate; they had mistaken Ruth for her; and one of them had somehow signaled the beggar to accost her.

This had come to Ruth, therefore, not because she was chosen by fate; it simply had happened to her, instead of to another of the hundreds of girls who had passed down State Street that morning, because she chanced to possess a certain sort of hair and eyes, shape of nose and chin, and way of carrying her head not unique at all but, in fact, very like two other girls--one who had been loyal and eager as she, but who now lay dead and another girl who had been sought by enemy agents for their work, but who had not been found and who, probably, would not now be found by them.

For, after giving the boxes to Ruth, the German who played the beggar would not search further; that delivery of the passport and the orders to her was proof that he believed she was the girl he sought. She had only to follow the orders given and she would be accepted by other German agents as one of themselves! She would pretend to them that she was going as a German spy into France in order that she could go, an American spy, into Germany! For that was what her orders read.

"You will report in person via Switzerland!" they said.

What a tremendous thing had been given her to do! What risks to run; what plans to make; what stratagems to scheme and to outwit! Upon her--her who an hour ago had been among the most futile and inconsiderable in all the world of war--now might hang the fate of the great moment if she did not fail, if she dared to do without regard to herself to the uttermost! She must do it alone, if she was to do it at all! She could not tell anyone! For the Germans who had entrusted this to her might be watching her. If she went to the American Secret Service, the Germans almost surely would know; and that would end any chance of their continuing to believe her their agent. No; if she was to do it, she must do it of herself; and she was going to do it!

This money, which she recounted, freed her at once from all bonds here. She speculated, of course, about whose it had been. She was almost sure it had not been Cynthia Gail's; for a young girl upon an honest errand would not have carried so great an amount in cash. No; Ruth had heard of the lavishness with which the Germans spent money in America and of the extravagant enterprises they hazarded in the hope of serving their cause in some way; and she was certain that this had been German money and that its association with the passport had not begun until the passport fell into hostile hands. The money, consequently, was Ruth's spoil from the enemy; she would send home two thousand dollars to free her from her obligation to her family for more than two years while she would keep the remainder for her personal expenses.

The passport too was recovered from the enemy; yet it had belonged to that girl, very like Ruth, who lay dead and unrecognized since this had been taken from her. There came to Ruth, accordingly, one of those weak, peacetime shocks of horror at the idea of leaving that girl to be put away in a nameless grave. As if one more nameless grave, amid the myriads of the war, made a difference!

Ruth gazed into the eyes of the girl of the picture; and that girl's words, which had seemed only a commonplace of the letter, spoke articulate with living hope. "Even I may be given my great moment to grasp!"

What could she care for a name on her grave?

"You can't be thinking of so small and silly a thing for me!" the girl of the picture seemed to say. "When you and I may save perhaps a thousand, ten thousand, a million men! I left home to serve; you know my dreams, for you have dreamed them too; and, more than you, I had opportunity offered to do. And instead, almost before I had started, I was killed stupidly and, it seemed for nothing. It almost happened that--instead of serving--I was about to become the means of betrayal of our armies. But you came to save me from that; you came to do for me, and for yourself, more than either of us dreamed to do. Be sure of me, as I would be sure of you in my place! Save me, with you, for our great moment! Carry me on!"

Ruth put the picture down. "We'll go on together!" she made her compact with the soul of Cynthia Gail.

She was glad that, before acting upon her decision, she had no time to dwell upon the consequences. She must accept her r?le at once or forever forsake it. Indeed, she might already be too late. She went to her washbowl and bathed; she redid her hair, more like the girl in the picture. The dress which she had been wearing was her best for the street so she put it on again. She put on her hat and coat; she separated two hundred dollars from the rest of the money and put it in her purse; the balance, together with the passport and the page of Cynthia Gail's letter, she secured in her knitting bag. The sheet of orders with the information about Cynthia Gail gave her hesitation. She reread it again carefully; and she was almost certain that she could remember everything; but, being informed of so little, she must be certain to have that exact. So she reached for her leaflet of instructions for knitting helmets, socks, and sweaters, and she wrote upon the margin, in almost imperceptible strokes, shorthand curls and dashes, condensing the related facts about Cynthia Gail. She put this in her bag, destroyed the original and, taking up her bag, she went out.

Every few moments as she proceeded down the dun and drab street, in nowise changed from the half hour before, she pressed the bag against her side to feel the hardness of the packets pinned in the bottom; she needed this feelable proof to assure her that this last half hour had not been all her fantasy but that truly the wand of war, which she had seen to lift so many out of the drudge of mean, mercenary tasks, had touched her too.

She hailed a taxicab as soon as she was out of sight of the boarding house and directed it to the best downtown store where she bought, with part of the two hundred dollars, such a fur toque and such a blue coat with a fur collar as she supposed Cynthia Gail might have possessed. She had qualms while she was paying for them; she seemed to be spending a beggar's money, given her by mistake. She wore the new toque and the coat, instructing that her old garments be sent, without name, to the war-relief shop.

Out upon the street again, the fact that she had spent the money brought her only exultation; it had begun to commit her by deed, as well as by determination and had begun to muster her in among those bound to abandon all advantage--her security, her life--in the great cause of her country. It had seemed to her, before, the highest and most wonderful cause for which a people had ever aroused; and now, as she could begin to think herself serving that cause, what might happen to her had become the tiniest and meanest consideration.

She took another taxicab for the Hotel Champlain. She knew this for a handsome and fashionable hotel on the north side near the lake; she had never been in such a hotel as a guest. Now she must remember that she had had a room there since last week and she had been away from it since Sunday night, visiting, and she had kept the room rather than go to the trouble of giving it up. When she approached the hotel, she leaned forward in her seat and glanced at herself in the little glass fixed in one side of the cab. She saw that she was not trembling outwardly and that she had good color--too much rather than too little; and she looked well in the new, expensive coat and toque.

When the cab stopped and the hotel doorman came out, she gave him money to pay the driver and she went at once into the hotel, passing many people who were sitting about or standing.

The room-clerk at the desk looked up at her, as a room-clerk gazes at a good looking and well-dressed girl who is a guest.

"Key, please," she said quietly. She had to risk her voice without knowing how Cynthia Gail had spoken. That was one thing which the Germans had forgotten to ascertain--or had been unable to discover--for her. But the clerk noticed nothing strange.

"Yes, Miss Gail," he recognized her, and he turned to take the key out of box 347. "Mail too, Miss Gail?"

"Please."

He handed Ruth three letters, two postmarked Decatur and one Rockford, and also the yellow envelope of a telegram. He turned back to the box and fumbled for a card.

"There was a gentleman here for you 'bout half an hour ago, Miss Gail," the clerk recollected. "He waited a while but I guess he's gone. He left this card for you."

Ruth was holding the letters and also the telegram unopened; she had not cared to inquire into their contents when in view of others. It was far safer to wait until she could be alone before investigating matters which might further confuse her. So she was very glad that the man who had been "here for her" was not present at that instant; certainly she required all the advantage which delay and the mail and the contents of Cynthia Gail's room could give her.

She had thought, of course, of the possibility of someone awaiting her; and she had recognized three contingencies in that case. A man who called for her might be a friend or a relative of Cynthia Gail; this, though difficult enough, would be easiest and least dangerous of all. The man might be a United States agent aware that Cynthia Gail was dead, that her passport had fallen into hostile hands; he therefore would have come to take her as an enemy spy with a stolen passport. The man might be a German agent sent there to aid her or give her further orders or information, if the Germans still were satisfied that they had put the passport into proper hands; if they were not--that is, if they had learned that the beggar had made a mistake--then the man might be a German who had come to lure her away to recover the passport and punish her.

The man's card, with his name--Mr. Hubert Lennon, engraved in the middle--told nothing more about him.

"I will be in my room," Ruth said to the clerk, when she glanced up from the card. "If Mr. Lennon returns or anyone else calls, telephone me."

She moved toward the elevator as quickly as possible; but the room-clerk's eyes already were attracted toward a number of men entering from the street.

"He's not gone, Miss Gail! Here he is now!" the clerk called.

Ruth pretended not to hear; but no elevator happened to be waiting into which she could escape.

"Here's the gentleman for you!" a bellboy announced to Ruth so that she had to turn and face then and there the gentleman who had been waiting for her.

The man who advanced from the group which had just entered the hotel, appeared to be about thirty years old; he was tall and sparely built and stooped very slightly as though in youth he had outgrown his strength and had never quite caught up. He had a prominent nose and a chin which, at first glance, seemed forceful; but that impression altered at once to a feeling that here was a man of whom something might have been made but had not. He was not at all dissolute or unpleasant looking; his mouth was sensitive, almost shy, with only lines of amiability about it; his eyes, which looked smaller than they really were because of the thick lenses of his glasses, were gray and good natured and observant. His hair was black and turning gray--prematurely beyond doubt. It was chiefly the grayness of his hair, indeed, which made Ruth suppose him as old as thirty. He wore a dark overcoat and gray suit--good clothes, so good that one noticed them last--the kind of clothes which Sam Hilton always thought he was buying and never procured. He pulled off a heavy glove to offer a big, boyish hand.

"How do you do, Cy--Miss Gail?" he greeted her. He was quite sure of her but doubtful as to use of her given name.

"Hubert Lennon!" Ruth exclaimed, giving her hand to his grasp--a nice, pleased, and friendly grasp. She had ventured that, whoever he was, he had known Cynthia Gail long ago but had not seen her recently; not for several years, perhaps, when she was so young a girl that everyone called her Cynthia. Her venture went well.

She was able to learn from him, without his suspecting that she had not known, that she had an engagement with him for the afternoon; they were to go somewhere--she could not well inquire where--for some event of distinct importance for which she was supposed to be "ready."

"I'm not ready, I'm sorry to say," Ruth seized swiftly the chance for fleeing to refuge in "her" room. "I've just come in, you know. But I'll dress as quickly as I can."

"I'll be right here," he agreed.

She stepped into a waiting elevator and drew back into the corner; two men, who talked together, followed her in and the car started upwards. If the Germans had sent someone to the hotel to observe her when she appeared to take the place of Cynthia Gail, that person pretty clearly was not Hubert Lennon, Ruth thought; but she could not be sure of these two men. They were usual looking, middle-aged men of the successful type who gazed at her more than casually; neither of them called a floor until after Ruth asked for the third; then the other said, "Fourth," sharply while the man who remained silent left the elevator after Ruth. She was conscious that he came behind her while she followed the room numbers along the hallway until she found the door of 347; he passed her while she was opening it. She entered and, putting the key on the inside, she locked herself in, pressing close to the panel to hear whether the man returned. But she heard only a rapping at a door farther on; the man's voice saying, "I, Adele;" then a woman's and a child's voices.

"Nerves!" Ruth reproached herself. "You have to begin better than this."

She was in a large and well-furnished bedroom; the bed and bureau and dressing table were set in a sort of alcove, half partitioned off from the end of the room where was a lounge with a lamp and a writing desk. These were hotel furniture, of course; the other articles--the pretty, dainty toilet things upon the dressing table, the dresses and the suit upon the hangers in the closet, the nightdress and kimono upon the hooks, the boots on the rack, the waists, stockings, undergarments, and all the other girl's things laid in the drawers--were now, of necessity, Ruth's. There was a new steamer trunk upon a low stand beyond the bed; the trunk had been closed after being unpacked and the key had been left in it. A small, brown traveling bag--also new--stood on the floor beside it. Upon the table, beside a couple of books and magazines, was a pile of department-store packages--evidently Cynthia Gail's purchases which she had listed in her letter to her mother. The articles, having been bought on Saturday, had been delivered on Monday and therefore had merely been placed in the room.

Ruth could give these no present concern; she could waste no time upon examination of the clothes in the closet or in the drawers. She bent at once before the mirror of the dressing table where Cynthia Gail had stuck in two kodak pictures and two cards at the edge of the glass. The pictures were both of the same young man--a tall, straight, and strongly built boy in officer's uniform; probably Lieutenant Byrne, Ruth thought; at least he was not Hubert Lennon; and the cards in the glass betrayed nothing about him, either; both, plainly, were "reminder" cards, one having "Sunday, 4:30!" written triumphantly across it, the other, "Mrs. Malcolm Corliss, Superior 9979."

Ruth knew--who in Chicago did not know?--of Mrs. Malcolm Corliss, particularly since America entered the war. Ruth knew that the Superior number was a telephone probably in Mrs. Corliss' big home on the Lake Shore Drive. Ruth picked up the leather portfolio lying upon the dressing table; opening it, she faced four portrait photographs; an alert, able and kindly looking man of about fifty; a woman a few years younger, not very unlike Ruth's own mother and with similarly sweet eyes and a similar abundance of beautiful hair. These photographs had been but recently taken. The third was several years old and was of a handsome, vigorous, defiant looking boy of twenty-one or two; the fourth was of a cunning, bold little youth of twelve in boy-scout uniform. Ruth had no doubt that these were Cynthia Gail's family; she was very glad to have that sight of them; yet they told her nothing of use in the immediate emergency. Her hand fell to the drawer of the dresser where, a moment ago, Ruth had seen a pile of letters; she recognized that she must examine everything; yet it was easier for her to open first the letters which had never become quite Cynthia Gail's--the three letters and the dispatch which the clerk had given Ruth.

Letter received; it's like you, but by all means go ahead; I'll back you. Love. Father.

That told nothing except that she had, in some recent letter, suggested an evidently adventurous deviation from her first plan.

The first letter from Decatur which Cynthia Gail now opened was from her mother--a sweet, concerned motherly letter of the sort which that girl, who had been Ruth Alden, well knew and which made her cry a little. It told absolutely nothing about anyone whom Cynthia might meet in Chicago except the one line, "I'm very glad that Mrs. Malcolm Corliss has telephoned to you." The second letter from Decatur, written a day earlier than the other, was from her father; from this Cynthia gained chiefly the information--which the Germans had not supplied her--that her father had accompanied her to Chicago, established her at the hotel and then been called back home by business. He had been "sorry to leave her alone" but of course she was meeting small risks compared to those she was to run. The letter from Rockford, which had arrived only that morning, was from George--that meant George Byrne. She had been engaged to him, it appeared; but they had quarreled on Sunday; he felt wholly to blame for it now; he was very, very sorry; he loved her and could not give her up. Would she not write him, please, as soon as she could bring herself to?

The letter was all about themselves--just of her and of him. No one else at all was mentioned. The letters in the drawer--eight in number--were all from him; they mentioned, incidentally, many people but all apparently of Decatur; there was no reference of any sort to anyone named Hubert or Lennon.

She returned the letters to their place in the drawer and laid with them those newly received. The mail, if it gave her small help, at least had failed to present any immediately difficult problem of its own. There was apparently no anxiety at home about her; she safely could delay responding until later in the afternoon; but she could not much longer delay rejoining Hubert Lennon or sending him some excuse; and offering excuse, when knowing nothing about the engagement to which she was committed, was perhaps more dangerous than boldly appearing where she was expected. The Germans had told her that they believed she had no close friends in Chicago; and, so far as she had added to that original information, it seemed confirmed.

The telephone bell rang and gave her a jump; it was not the suddenness of the sound, but the sign that even there when she was alone a call might make demand which she could not satisfy. She calmed herself with an effort before lifting the receiver and replying.

"Cynthia?" a woman's voice asked.

"Yes," she said.

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